As companies accelerate their digital transitions, employees detail a changed workplace

The U.S.’s COVID-19 caseload continues to set records as major states move to re-shutter their economies in hopes of stemming its spread. For many workers the situation means more time in the home office and less time in their traditional workplace. My colleague Greg Kumparak spent some time talking to companies about how best to work remotely. You can read that on Extra Crunch here.

What the world will look like when safety eventually returns is not clear, but it’s becoming plain that the workplace will not revert to its old normal. New data details changed employee sentiment, showing that a good portion of the working world doesn’t want to get back to its pre-COVID commute, and, in many cases, is eyeing a move to a different city or state in the wake of the pandemic and its economic disruptions.

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The changing workplace has shifted — accelerated, you could say — demand for all sorts of products and services, from grocery delivery to software. The latter category of tools has seen quickening demand as the world moves to support newly remote workforces, helping keep them both productive and secure.

TechCrunch has covered the accelerating digital transformation — industry slang for companies moving to a more software-and-cloud world — before, noting that investors are making big bets on companies that might benefit from its ramping pace. Thanks to new data from a Twilio-led survey, we have a fresh look at that trend.

Undergirding the digital transformation is how today’s workers are adapting to remote work. If many workers don’t want to stop working from home, the gains that companies serving the digital transformation are seeing could prove permanent. New data from a Qualtrics -led survey may help us understand the new mindset of the domestic and global worker.

At the union of the two datasets is a lens into the future of not only how many information workers, to borrow an old phrase, will labor in the future, but how they’ll feel about it. So, this morning let’s explore the world through two data-driven lenses, helped as we go with notes from interviews with Qualtrics’ CEO Ryan Smith and Twilio’s chief customer officer, Glenn Weinstein.

What workers want